


just let my love loose again

by cori_the_bloody



Series: i've been dying to tell you anything [2]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV 2020)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, only fuzzy feels to be found here, plot? oh no my friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-24 10:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30071169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cori_the_bloody/pseuds/cori_the_bloody
Summary: In which Luke doesn’t notice how much he says without using his words until Julie starts talking back
Relationships: Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Series: i've been dying to tell you anything [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2212383
Comments: 14
Kudos: 96





	just let my love loose again

**Author's Note:**

> you don't absolutely have to read the first work in the series to get this one, but you will have limited context for number 10. fair warning.

**i. i miss you when you’re not around; then let me get as close as i can**

  


Julie shrieks when he appears leaning against her headboard. “Luke! You’re—!” She presses a hand to the center of her chest. “You can’t do that.”

He attempts a charming smile even though they never quite work on Julie the same way they work on everyone else. “Yeah, well, you were taking a real long time getting downstairs.”

“That’s not a good excuse,” she says, rolling her eyes, “and you know it.”

“Maaaybe.” He drawls out the word as he dives for her, wrapping his arms around her hips, and pressing his face into her side.

“I could have been changing,” she says, and he can tell that she’s shaking her head even though he’s not looking. “I _am_ changing.”

“Still?” he asks, and she pulls out of his grasp with an affirming laugh, standing and making her way into the closet. “It’s been at least an hour since we got back.”

Her voice floats out to him from behind the cracked door. “It’s been fifteen minutes, actually.”

“Huh.” He considers this information as he sits back up and falls against the headboard again. “That still seems like a really long amount of time just for changing.”

“Says the guy who owns ten versions of the same outfit. Of course it doesn’t take you any time to change.” She comes back out, having swapped her jeans and sparkly tank top for soft-looking pants with little mushrooms printed on them and a less-sparkly tank top. “You never do, really.”

He raises his eyebrows. “I guess if it takes fifteen minutes to make this killer look happen, it’s worth delaying the PPE for.”

“Shut up,” she says, and then she crawls up onto the bed and into his lap with all the determination of a pilot trying to land a plane in a snowstorm before shoving her hands up under his arms and hugging him close with warm palms pressed against his shoulder blades.

He tucks his surprised smile away into the frizz of her freshly unbraided hair. “I mean it, though.”

“I know you do,” she says, her breath on his neck raising goosebumps down his back. “That’s exactly why you have to shut up.”

They sit in silence long enough that her heartbeat feels like it’s as good as his own. And by that point, he’s physically incapable of holding off on breaking it. “How much do you wanna bet Alex and Reggie have bailed by now?”

“Oh, they absolutely have,” Julie says.

He nods his agreement, and her hair tickles his nose. “On one hand, that kinda makes me mad at them.”

“And on the other?” she wants to know.

“Well, on the other, it means nothing’s stopping us from doing this some more.”

She squeezes him tighter. “That’s true. So I say we let them off the hook.”

At this rate, her hair is gonna be full of his smiles long before either of them return to the studio. “You’re the boss.”

  


**ii. hey, pay attention to me; you never leave me much choice**

  


Luke drops his head back with a groan. “God, this is torture. Why do you always have _so much_ homework?”

Julie shakes her head. “You know, if you could sit still for more than ten seconds, I could concentrate, and then it wouldn’t take me so long.”

“Hey, I’ve got an idea,” he says, lifting his head back up and shifting on the studio’s couch so his whole body’s angled toward her.

She glances over at him, waiting.

He waggles his eyebrows. “Drop out of school and let’s tour the country.”

She scoffs, refocusing on her work by jabbing some numbers into her calculator. “Yeah, my dad would love that.”

“Come on, why not? He loves our music!”

She smiles ruefully. “True. But I think he loves the idea of a high school diploma just a little bit more.”

Luke huffs. “Parents are weird.”

Julie doesn’t acknowledge that, too busy scribbling down numbers on her scrap paper, and after a second, he lets loose a whine.

Sensing that he’s about to unleash his pent-up energy, she starts to scold him. “Do not—”

But he’s already shoved the textbook in her lap onto the floor, intent on replacing it with himself.

“— _oof_ ,” she finishes as he lands on her thighs, knees hugging her hips.

“Hi,” he says, leaning forward to bump the end of his nose against her’s.

“I have a quiz tomorrow,” she says back, but she fists the chains at his side, holding him in place.

“You never use math in the real world, trust me.”

She cocks her head, forehead bumping his brow. “You’re a musician?”

“So? Music math is on a whole other planet from algebra.”

She laughs in spite of herself, letting her forehead come to rest against his. “You’re impossible, you know that?”

“Impossibly charming.”

“If that’s what you want to call it.”

“That’s what I am.”

She steals a quick kiss before drawing back from him, and he recognizes it as the placating it is. But it also feels a little bit like agreement.

He smiles triumphantly as he stands and retrieves her book from the floor.

“Fifteen minutes,” she says with a grateful nod. “And then we can rehearse.”

“Deal,” he says, and then mimes zipping his lips shut.

  


**iii. i don’t like anyone as much as i like you; the feeling’s mutual, obviously**

  


“You got slammed with dish duty, huh?” Luke asks as he phases into the kitchen, settling himself on the counter next to the sink.

Julie jerks with surprise, dropping a bowl back into the sudsy water. Then she whips her head around to glare at him.

“I mean, at least you weren’t holding a knife?” he tries.

“ _You’re_ the one who’s lucky I’m not holding a knife, mister.”

“You wouldn’t ever try to stab me,” he says, poking her leg with the toe of his shoe.

She dries her hands on a dish towel and then removes her earbuds. “You sound awfully confident for someone who insists on annoying me so much.”

He nods at the phone she’s pulling out of her pocket. “What’re you listening to?”

“Already on it,” she says as the music switches over from her headphones to her phone’s speaker.

“Nice,” he says, resting his head against the side of the cabinet as he listens.

Julie sets her cell next to his thigh before fishing the bowl back out of the water. He glances at the screen, clocking the song title—“Your Apartment”—before settling his eyes back on her. It has a good beat, this song, one that makes me want to stamp his feet along, and Julie seems to agree. She’s dancing her shoulders back and forth, rocking her hips for good measure, and he’s instantly mesmerized by the way the music comes alive in every part of her.

His heart already feels kinda drippy in his chest, like he’s shoveled it into a smelter, when she starts singing along, holding the dish brush up like a microphone.

“ _Oh, I wanna be the girl who makes you try_.”

He can’t contain himself anymore, so he flings himself down off the counter and grabs onto Julie’s hand. She barely manages to set the bowl and brush aside before he’s tugging her away from the sink and giving her a spin.

Her laughter rings out as he catches her hips in both hands, stopping her so she’s facing him.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“Dancing with you!” he says, and he knows his voice is a little too loud, a little too hyped, but she smiles and lets him swing her side-to-side by her hips, closing her eyes and biting her lower lip to keep in her laughter as he moves her to the beat.

When the chorus hits, though, she can’t seem to help singing along, voice bursting out of her clear and bright.

“Yes!” he says, and then kicks out his leg because he simply cannot feel this enthused and not do anything about it.

The _thunk_ that results from his shoe connecting with the cabinet makes them both freeze in surprise…and then dissolve into giggles.

“Ghosts aren’t supposed to have to be good at being coordinated,” he says, pouting just a little.

“Here,” Julie says, threading her fingers between his and tugging him back behind the island where there’s more space. 

When he doesn’t resume dancing right away, she lifts one of his hands to her face and presses her lips to the heel of his thumb before repeating the action with his other hand. 

Then, as if that weren’t enough to leave him dumbfounded, she kicks out her one foot. And then the other. And then the first one again.

“You’re making fun of me,” he says over the music, leaning away to better appreciate her form.

She shakes her head, and her smile is so big, he can’t possibly look away. “I’m dancing with you!” she corrects.

“Nah,” he says, even as he joins back in, tugging her into him and winding and arm around her waist before whirling them in circles. “You’re making fun of me.”

“Fine,” she says, her voice full of laughter. “I’m multitasking.”

He laughs back, spins them faster.

“I like it,” he says once the last note’s left ringing through the kitchen. And then she’s looking up at him with her shimmery warm eyes, and he feels compelled to clarify, “The song.”

“Yeah,” she says, gazing at him like she knows exactly what he means. “Me, too.”

  


**iv. i don’t like to tease anyone as much as i like to tease you; you’re an asshole (and the feeling’s mutual, obviously)**

  


“It’s late.”

Uncharacteristically, Julie remains composed when he pops next to where she’s sitting on the roof outside her room, shrugging and answering him off-handedly. “Hence the darkness.”

He tries not to feel too disappointed that he didn’t spook her even a little, but that lasts all of one second. “You expecting me or something?”

She runs her tongue between her lips, trying to smooth out her smile with little success. “I mean, I don’t normally hang out on the roof, that’s for sure.”

It takes a second before the implication of her reply catches up with him. When it does, though, he nods his approval. “Smooth.”

She lets out a ‘I can’t believe I expected anything else from you’ kind of huffing laugh. “Thanks.”

“So.”

She raises her eyebrows. “So?”

“You got a reason for summoning me?”

“Well,” she says, turning to stare out at the studio and tucking her hair behind her ear. “I wouldn’t say I summoned you. It was more of an invitation. A lowkey invitation. Almost an experiment, really.”

“An experiment to see if you could get me to come up here,” he says, and he’s just innocently looking for clarification. Honest. It has nothing to do with the way the air around her gets warmer when she’s flustered, or with the way that makes her an extra snuggleable Julie.

She turns back to him sharply, eyes wide. “Did I say experiment? Because what I meant was—”

She cuts off abruptly with a squeak when he tips himself over across her lap and buries his face in her tummy. Definitely extra snuggleable.

“Gotcha,” he says, grinning with satisfaction.

“In some parallel universe,” she says, and then her fingers are combing through his hair and something honey sweet and thick catches in his throat, “I get to be the ghost and you’re the jumpy one.”

“Well then,” he says, swallowing hard. “I hope Parallel Julie is having as much fun as I am.”

He feels her body shimmer with laughter, and then she’s curling over him so she can drop a kiss atop his head. “Oh believe me,” she whispers in his ear before sitting back up. “She is.”

  


**v. stop being so impressive or i’ll have to kiss you; do it next time, you coward**

  


“Would you stop that?” Alex throws one of his drumsticks across the studio. “You’re driving me nuts.”

“You?” Luke dodges even though the stick falls way short. “Imagine what I feel like!”

“I refuse,” Alex says. “I’m not strong enough.”

“Will you _please_ just write the riff down and get it out of your brain long enough for us to work on something else?”

“It’s not ready to be written down,” he says, shaking his head at Julie, who’s sitting at her keyboard with her arms crossed. “He’s shy.”

“You did _not_ just gender that annoying little—” Alex bites his tongue so hard, it makes Luke super curious about the noun he’d been about to use.

“Fucker of an earworm?” Reggie suggests cheerfully.

Alex lets out a gusty sigh. “That works.”

“Okay, you know what? Play it one more time,” Julie says, voice suddenly business-like in a way that actually does drive all thought from Luke’s mind for a long second.

“Really?” Alex says. “Et tu, Julie?”

She turns her nose up at him. “Productive comments only from this point forward, please.”

Luke sticks out his tongue. “Yeah, Alex.”

“Luke, play the damn—”

“Annoyinglittlefuckerofanearworm,” Reggie says, piling up the words in his haste to get the joke out.

Julie breaks, closing her eyes and smiling to herself. “Yeah, what he said.”

Luke grins back. “You got it, boss.”

She keeps her eyes closed as he plays the, well—the annoying little fucker of an earworm that’s been in his head all afternoon.

“One more time,” she says before he’s gotten to the end of the line, allowing him to loop back to the beginning without pause. And then she’s playing with him, layering her keyboard over his guitar and tugging the music out of his head and down through his heart, sending it soaring out into the open space of the studio.

At once, he rips his guitar off and nearly sends the keyboard bench flying backward as he slides onto it, wrapping his arms around her.

“If you liked it that much, we should write it down before we forget it!” Julie protests, but she’s breathless with laughter and isn’t exactly making an effort to extract herself from his arms.

“Oh, that’s not going to be a problem.” Alex’s voice crashes into the moment from behind them. Not that remembering his boys are still in the room is enough to make Luke stop tracing the shell of Julie’s ear with the tip of his nose.

“Yeah,” Reggie says, and then knocks on his head. “It’s all up here.”

“Alex…” Julie says, her voice still managing to sound worried even given the giggling.

“Yeah,” he agrees, “I’m on it.”

“Hey! If that was a dig at my intelligence—” Reggie starts.

“Which it was,” Alex says.

“—I find it hurtful.”

Reggie and Alex’s squabbling fades into the background as Julie tucks her face against his forehead.

“PDA is kinda your thing, huh?” she asks.

He pulls out from under the curtain of her hair, eyes wide. “Jules, PDA’s everybody’s thing.”

“Pretty sure that’s not true,” Alex says, having moved from the couch over to the piano to grab a fresh sheet of paper from Julie’s composition folder. “I, for example, find it obscene.”

“You don’t count,” Luke tells him. “You don’t like anything fun.”

“I’m fun,” Alex says with a high pitch scoff.

“Okay, Alex.”

“Back me up on this, guys!”

“You’re fun,” Reggie says. “And mean, though usually in a fun way.”

Julie scrunches up her nose at Luke, like she’s apologizing for what she’s about to say. “That is kinda perfect. Alex is mean in a fun way.”

He rolls his eyes. “Fine, Alex is fun.”

“Thank you,” Alex says, nodding as if that settles the matter for eternity, and then he slides the paper off the piano and walks it over to where they’re sitting. “I think this is maybe seventy percent of what you played.”

Julie takes the paper and pencil from him with a smile.

Luke leans in to read over her shoulder as she goes through Alex’s work.

“What do you think?” she asks after she finishes making adjustments.

He gives one satisfied nod. “That’s our baby.”

“Hmm, not sure I like that pet name any better than you assigning this piece of music a gender,” Alex says, settling behind his drums.

“Well, now that _that’s_ over,” Julie says before Luke has the chance to reply, “We need to get back to work. This break’s been, like, ten times longer than it should have been.”

“Ooh, she’s getting stern,” Reggie says. “You know what that means?”

She throws a quirked eyebrow over her shoulder at him.

“It means we do what she says,” he finishes quickly, standing from the couch.

“Damn right,” Luke says, also hopping out of his seat.

“Hey.” She calls him back before he gets much further than standing.

“Yeah?”

Julie folds up the sheet of music and slips it into his back pocket. And then she gives it one firm pat, as if settling it in place. “Take care of our baby.”

He’d say something back, but honestly his entire brain is in the middle of rebooting.

Julie’s cheeks darken with a blush, like she can’t believe she actually just did that. And, well, she can join the club.

“See what I mean?” Alex says, clucking his tongue. “Obscene.”

Luke finds his voice again just in time to say, “Shut up, Alex.”

Julie clears her throat and only squeaks a little when she says, “Can we please focus now?”

“I’m ready,” Reggie says triumphantly.

“Please tell me you mean on rehearsal,” Alex says.

Julie rolls her eyes. “Shut up, Alex.”

Alex gives her a shit-eating smile and then holds his sticks up in the air, knocking them together as he counts them in.

  


**vi. you care so much and it does funny things to my heart; you’re one of the people i care most about, dummy**

  


“Doing some remodeling?”

Julie flinches, accidentally sending a pile of folded t-shirts to the ground. With a huff, she whirls around to face him. “How did you even find me in here?”

“Finding you is easy. I barely have to concentrate.”

She does a really bad job of trying to pretend that’s not flattering, ducking her head and then immediately peeking up at him again. “Really?”

Luke nods enthusiastically. “Center of the universe, baby.”

Her cheeks darken, and she doesn’t seem to know what to say to that, so she gestures behind her at the tall shelf that lines the master bedroom’s closet. “Looking for a time capsule.”

“Is that a complete sentence?” he asks, biting back a grin at her fluster.

“That’s what I’m doing,” she says, dropping to her knees to gather up the t-shirts he’d totally forgotten about, honestly. “Not remodeling.”

“Right,” he says, stooping to help. “And what exactly is in this time capsule?”

“You reach it for me,” she says, accepting a shirt from him, “and I’ll let you look inside.”

“Sold.”

“It’s a shoebox up there somewhere.” She stands, smiling. “My name’s on it in marker.”

She spots it before he does and he has to pick her up so she she can grab it because it’s too heavy for him to really hold onto, but then they’re folding themselves down onto the floor and Julie’s lifting the lid with a reverence that makes his chest feel molten hot with an emotion he doesn’t have a name for.

“No way,” he says, leaning in over her shoulder. “Little Julie did softball?” He goes to grab the printed picture of her and Carlos only to find it’s been pinned to a medallion. “Of course. Little Julie rocked the softball field.”

“Little Julie held her own,” she says, sifting past the first layer of trinkets.

Luke points to an orange pill bottle, a date written carefully along the side in permanent marker. “What’s in there?”

“A chrysalis,” she says distractedly, and then pauses to smile fondly at it. “My dad was so excited that he ended up being one of the parent volunteers that day.”

Luke _hmm_ s, waiting for her to take him deeper into the memory.

She’s already moving on, though, tugging a piece of paper out from the chaos. “Here we go.”

He watches her unfold it. “That’s sheet music.”

“You know, if ghost musician doesn’t work out for you, I think you could fall back on ghost detective.”

He shoves her on the shoulder, tipping her sideways. “And if lead singer in a ghost band doesn’t work out for you, your next move’s clearly stand-up.”

She rocks back into him, elbow connecting with his ribs. “It’s Flynn’s birthday on Friday, and I think she’s been feeling kinda sad about not being part of the band. So I’m making her something with all the music we’ve made together. Because I think she needs the reminder that she’s always gonna be with me, the same way mom is.” Julie clasps her low-hanging necklace in her palm. “The way you guys are now, too.”

“And it starts with this?” he asks, setting his chin on her shoulder so he can read the song she’s holding.

“It starts with this,” she agrees. “And Mother’s Day twenty-thirteen.”

She starts to hum the tune, and he presses his forehead into her cheek, soaking in the warmth of her as the vibrations of her music dance their way across his face.

“She’s gonna love it,” he says after a moment.

“I think so,” Julie says, jostling him a little as she puts everything except the sheet music back inside the time capsule and closes the lid.

He presses into her more insistently. “Well, I know so.”

She laughs, and then nuzzles against him so they’re cheek to cheek.

“What’s your favorite holiday?” she asks, long after their breathing has synced and the world outside the closet has fallen away completely.

“Looking for an excuse to make me a present?” he asks, grinning.

He can hear her grinning back. “Always.”

“You know what I want?” he asks instead of answering the question.

She _hmm_ s. “What?”

“Sing me your song, Julie.”

She does, right in his ear.

  


**vii. you’re the only one who knows how to make my brain go quiet; you deserve the peace**

  


“Thought I might find you out here.”

Luke glances back to find Julie pushing open her bedroom window.

“Mind if I join you?” she asks.

He answers by scooting over on the roof, making more room.

She hoists herself up onto the sill, and then gingerly eases herself out next to him.

He tries to swallow down the words piling up at the back of his throat because she’s the one who owes him, what with the writing a letter to his mom without telling him she was going to. So he should be all slick with the waiting her out and the chilly silence…but as soon as she’s settled and brushing debris off her hands, he can’t hold back.

“What I don’t get is _why_.”

Julie nods and pulls her knees into her chest. “I don’t know why either, exactly. It just…felt right.” She turns toward him sharply, and all the willpower he couldn’t summon into staying quiet goes into keeping his eyes trained ahead. “Well, it did at the time, anyway.”

“You regret it?” he asks, voice tight. Because that makes it worse, he thinks.

To her credit, she takes the question seriously, thinking it over for a long minute before answering him. “No. But I think, um, if I could do it over… Well, I’d ask first. What you thought about it.”

Luke lets out a breath, muscles unclenching. “Not sure I’d have been very helpful,” he says, attempting a laugh. “I don’t know what I think about it now, and it’s already over.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” she says, wrapping her palms over the toes of her sneakers. “I could write her back.”

He can’t resist anymore. He peeks at her. “Is that the plan?”

“That depends,” she says, resting her cheek on her knees and watching him. “What would you think if it was?”

He groans. “Weren’t you listening? I have no freaking clue.”

“Hey.” Her voice is low and she’s looking him directly in the eye so he feels her every word as much as he hears them. “That’s okay. I don’t need you to answer now.”

“Oh.” He nods. “Okay.”

“Besides,” she continues, “you not knowing kinda says a lot on its own, so it’s not like you’re leaving me with nothing, you know?”

It’s somehow exactly the right thing to say.

He reaches over and pries her fingers off her sneaker so he can weave his own between them, and then squeezes. “Well, then that’s something.”

They sit in the quiet for a few moments.

Julie’s the one to speak first. “Are you mad at me?”

He scoffs.

“I’m serious!” She shakes their joined hands, jostling him. “It would make sense if you were.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Do you want me to be?”

She scoffs, and that makes him smile.

“I’m not mad, I’m—” He breaks off, shaking his head.

“What?” Julie asks, lifting her head.

“I think I’m jealous,” he says, snorting a laugh. “Crazy, right?”

“Because I can talk to her?”

He rubs at the back of his neck with his free hand, ashamed to admit it, but— “Because of how much she likes you.”

“Luke,” she says, voice thick with emotion as she scoots closer to him so she can rest her head against his shoulder. “You wanna know why she likes me so much?”

“Because you’re the most likable person on the planet,” he answers easily.

“No,” she says, her warm cheek brushing against his skin as she shakes her head. “And not just because that’s not even true.”

“Oh, it’s true.”

She ignores him. “She likes me so much because I brought a piece of you back to life for her.” When he doesn’t answer for a long moment, she adds, “The thing she likes best about me is you.”

“You really think so?”

She presses her lips against his bicep. “Didn’t you read the letter?”

“Not all of it,” he admits. “Too weird.”

“Then trust me on this,” she says, pulling her head back so she can surge forward and leave another kiss on the curve of his shoulder. And then another.

He squeezes her hand. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

He knows she’s asking beyond just this moment, so he nods, wanting her to know he means it and, more than that, he means it because of her. “Okay.”

Satisfied, she lays her head back on his shoulder, and he doesn’t think about anything but the reassuring pressure until the night air gets too cold and she has to go back inside.

  


**viii. you’re my best friend; then i’m in good company**

  


“This was a good idea,” Luke says, dropping next to Julie on the park bench and jerking his head toward where Alex is pushing Reggie on the swing. “Change of scenery, right?”

“Right,” Julie says, all business, and then their eyes meet and a grin spreads on her face.

“We needed it,” he says, grinning back automatically.

“You guys _have_ been kinda…” She trails off, searching. “Brattier than usual.”

“Alex gets like this,” Luke says sagely.

“Okay, I was clearly talking about all of you, but go off, I guess.”

“What?” He sits up straighter. “When have I ever been bratty?”

“You were literally just being a brat.”

“Nuh-uh. Prove it.”

“Trying to blame your collective brattiness on Alex was a bratty thing to do.”

“Why do I keep hearing my name?” Alex asks, catching Reggie’s swing by the chains and forcing him to a stop.

“Because Julie thinks you’re a brat.”

The back of Julie’s hand connects with his chest.

“Ouch.” He rubs the spot. “Hey.”

“Uh-huh,” Alex says. “From where I’m standing, it looks like Julie thinks you’re the brat.”

“Hey,” Reggie says, kicking his legs back and forth. “Higher!”

“She called us all brats, actually,” Luke says, and Julie swats him again. “What? That’s literally what you said!”

Alex shakes his head as he pulls Reggie back and releases him into a swing again. “I think I’m gonna have to agree with Julie on this one.”

“I said higher, swing wench!”

“You’re lucky you’re already dead,” Alex says, giving Reggie an especially aggressive push. “Otherwise, I might have to consider murdering you.”

“I’m not sure this was a good idea actually,” Julie says, eyeing the two of them.

“No, it was,” Luke says. “Believe me, that would have been an actual threat an hour ago.”

Julie hums.

“Yeah,” Reggie says as he soars up, his feet swooshing by their faces, the speed at which he’s moving selling the illusion that he’s much closer than he is. “That was nothing.”

“Turns out we’re not well-suited as long-term roommates,” Alex says, nodding his agreement.

“I dunno,” Luke says. “I still think it’d rock if it weren’t for the whole…well. You know.”

“Us being dead?” Alex guesses.

“The fact that it’s a garage?” Reggie tries.

Luke shakes his head, rolling his eyes ‘cause, uh, not even close.

“That you’re ruining the sanctity of the rehearsal space by also living in it?”

He only spares a second for surprised silence before he’s throwing his arm around Julie’s shoulders and tugging her against his side. “See, boys? She gets it.”

“Really?” Alex says. “You’re more bothered by that than the ‘being dead’ thing? You’re sure?”

“You’re surprised?” Julie asks.

“No…” Alex says, albeit reluctantly.

Reggie digs his shoes into the wood chips, slowing himself to a stop before he knocks into Alex, who’s no longer paying close attention. “Dude, you’ve been living in our rehearsal space way longer than we have, remember?”

“Okay, sure, but that was different.”

“Oh, yeah?” Alex asks. “How?”

“I’m me.”

“Okay.”

“Wait,” Reggie says. “I think I get what he’s saying, actually.”

“Thank you!” Luke says, pointing enthusiastically at him.

“You guys are ridiculous,” Julie says, and then buries her face in his chest. He doesn’t need to see her face to know she’s smiling.

“You love it,” he says, lips skimming the top of her head.

“Yeah, yeah.” Julie’s laughter rumbles through him, leaving him full of post-earthquake adrenaline. “I really do.”

  


**ix. you get me; duh, our bond is literally soul-deep**

  


Luke rolls off of Julie’s bed with a whine. “I just can’t!”

“I get it,” she says, sounding like she’s maybe two seconds away from laughing at him.

He spins around to check and, yeah, there’s trying-to-hold-back-laughter Julie, sitting in front of him with her lips pressed thin and her squinty eyes. “No, seriously, I’m telling you!” he says, keeping a firm grip on his indignation even though it’s hard with her looking that cute. “Movie nights are meant to start with a-a-a-a, what’s the word I’m looking for? Trip is too boring.”

“Adventure?” she suggests, still clearly trying to fend off a giggle fit.

He shakes his head. “Too genre.”

“I don’t know what you mean exactly,” she says, “but expedition? Outing?”

He snaps his fingers. “Expedition. Movie nights are meant to start with an expedition to a video store. They’re meant for holding hands as you walk down every aisle debating what to watch before you inevitably end up picking a movie you’ve already seen a hundred times because you’re not gonna be super focused on the movie anyway. And, I’m sorry, but this streaming thing is just stupid.”

“Okay,” Julie says, grinning so big her nose goes all crinkly, and shuts her laptop. “Netflix movie nights off the table. Got it.”

“Wait, where are you going?” he asks, as she sits up, hugging the computer to her chest, and scoots off the bed. “This is still a date, right?”

“I had an idea,” she says, nodding.

He watches as she plugs the laptop in and leaves it on her desk, then grabs something and joins him at the side of the bed. She glances at him, a smile in her eyes, before spreading three CDs that he recognizes from her mom’s collection out on the bedspread. He bites his lip and bounces up onto the balls of his feet.

“Pick one,” she says. “We can even hold hands while you do it.”

“Fuck that,” he says, throwing his arm around her and curling her into him for a hug, instead. He tucks his face against the side of her head, breathing in deep the smell of her hair. After a second, he says, “This is perfect.”

Her breathy laugh fills his ear as she wraps her arms all the way around his waist and squeezes as tight as she can. “I’m good, I know.” After a moment, she relaxes her grip and nods toward the bed. “Now pick one.”

“Put on whichever one you want,” he says. “I’m not gonna be super focused on the music anyway.”

She gasps, all theatrical surprise. Before she has the chance to say whatever teasing thing she’s about to say, though, he kisses her, there, with her heartbeat the only song in the room.

  


**x. i love you; the feeling’s mutual, asshole**

  


“Here.”

Julie stops removing her stage makeup as soon as Luke pops into the room to whip a thick square of folded paper out of nowhere and hold it out to him.

“What’s this?” Luke asks, taking it and eagerly unfolding it.

“Tracklist,” she says simply, going back to cleaning her eyelids.

He _ooh_ s and relaxes against the green room mirror, eyes scanning the page. She’s taken the time to hand write the songs, doodling little stars and flowers around her favorites. And—

“Hold the phone! Is this color-coded?”

She glances at him, a blush rising in her cheeks as a smile fights its way into existence at the edges of her lips. “There’s a key in the back, you geek.”

“Suh-weet!” He flips to the last page. His mind is racing too fast to really internalize the system, though—his heart trying to punch its way out of his chest.

She zips up her case of makeup and sets it aside, eyebrows raised. “You’re way more into this than I was expecting you to be,” she says with a laugh. “And I was expecting you to be pretty dang into it.”

“Well, yeah,” he says. “I wasn’t prepared for—.” He shakes the pages, gesticulating in her face. “I mean, damn, Jules, this is a work of art! You put all kinds of thought into this.”

“Well, yeah,” she says back at him. “I like to do that. You know, think about you.”

An involuntary whine of happiness slips down and out of his nose and he propels forward, sliding himself off the counter onto Julie’s lap as he throws his arms around her neck.

“One of these days you’re gonna squish me,” she says, her voice tight and airless. Probably because he slammed all the air out of her with his landing. “And that’ll be it. No more Julie.”

He ignores that in favor of peppering enthusiastic kisses along one sparkly eyebrow. “You know?” he says, and then moves onto the other one. “Between that…” He kisses the tip of her nose. “…And how many love songs I saw on the list…” He snags a kiss on the lips. “I’m starting to think you have a crush on me.”

She laughs one, honking laugh in his face and he is seized with the urge to steal another kiss, pressing her into the back of her chair with the force of it.

“Oh, my god, dude,” she says, and he tastes her fond exasperation on his tongue.

“Miss Rockstar herself has a crush on lil ole me.” He grins. “And we totally crushed it onstage. This is probably the best day ever.”

She’s the one to kiss him this time, snatching the grin out from under him before pulling back to let her eyes rove over his face. “You’re the most annoying person I know, do you understand that?”

He shakes his head. “See, you say that, but all I’m hearing is how much you love me.”

She _hmm_ s, tipping forward so her forehead is resting in the crook of his shoulder, her smile brushing the sensitive skin of his neck.

He hears the gesture deep in his heart: _Thanks for listening._

**Author's Note:**

> \- in my mind, PPE stands for "post-performance evaluation." i was gonna work it in, but it just never happened naturally. i figured it's not too distracting not knowing, but also here! now you do know.  
> \- "your apartment" is a jenny owen youngs song


End file.
